For a guy who’s spent so much of his career trying to stay healthy, to just stay upright on the tennis court, Thanasi Kokkinakis sure has some indelible on-court memories.
Like the time, as a 175th-ranked qualifier, he stunned Roger Federer, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(4), at the Miami Open, a loss that cost the Swiss maestro his No. 1 ranking. Or the fairytale run to his first ATP title before friends and family in his hometown of Adelaide. Or the feel-good ‘Summer of the Special Ks’, when he teamed with pal Nick Kyrgios to take the men’s doubles title at his beloved Australian Open.
You can add Tuesday’s 7-6(5), 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 opening-round upset of 11th-ranked Stefanos Tsitsipas at the US Open to the above, the very biggest Grand Slam win of his career, and his first in New York in a half-decade.
There’s a common thread here, of course. All of the above were emotional, career-resurrecting breakthroughs because they all came after years of injury setbacks for Kokkinakis, now 28. A one-time tennis prodigy who reached three of four junior Slam finals in 2013, he suffered through a string of physical hurdles, including shoulder surgery and glandular fever. During an especially infuriating stretch between 2016 and 2021, he was limited to just 35 tour-level singles matches.
“There was that middle period in my career for five or six years where I felt like I was pretty much a no-show, trying to get back, and I couldn’t,” he reflected.
But Kokkinakis, ranked No. 86, says those high-point moments of redemption have made it all worth it.
“Yeah, 100 percent,” he insisted. “That’s essentially what got me back playing and saying to myself, ‘This is what I want to do.’ The big thing I have thought about is trying to make the most out of whatever I have left. I missed the middle period of my career. When you’re younger and you kind of shoot up the rankings pretty quick, you just think it’s all up. Every tournament is a new experience. ‘I’ll finish the year around No. 60, and next year I’ll go higher.’ You just think it’s going to all go like that. There’s just so much of a journey. I kind of feel bad saying this, but when I have parents come up to me about their kids, saying they want to get into tennis, I try to shy them away from it.
“It’s really hard. There are so many ups and downs. It really tests you.”
There were only so many people he could turn to, who could understand what he was going through in those low moments.
“I don’t talk to a whole lot of people on the tour about that sort of stuff,” he said. “No one wants to hear it, to be honest. No one’s got time for that. They’re all your competitors at the end of the day. They’re like, ‘Oh, good to see you back,’ but if you’re a threat to them, they’re probably not glad to see you back. I’ve obviously got a few mates on the tour who aren’t like that, but that’s just how it is. It’s a competitive sport.”
“I talk to the people close to me, the people that I trust,” he added. “Maybe they haven’t been in my position as far as being a prodigy and then having it taken away from you, but there are just guys I trust, guys I’ve been around. You can relate to people in all sorts of experiences in life.”
Kokkinakis says it feels like a lifetime ago that he reached the ’13 US Open boys’ singles final, something he was reminded of this week when an old photo of himself and champ Borna Coric popped up on his X feed. But he’s enjoying the opportunity for another deep run at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in 2024.
“A lot of hard work has gone into it,” said Kokkinakis, who’ll next face Portugal’s Nuno Borges. “I’m staying positive and just competing my nuts off, really. I’ve always known that I’m capable of beating Top-10 players. It’s just being consistent with it and trying to string them together.”
